Anna Begins
by upthenorthmountain
Summary: Inspired by the Counting Crows song 'Anna Begins'. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

A lot of new guests arrive on a Saturday. All evening she's been in the hotel bar - not alone, with a couple of other young women, but she's the one he can't stop looking at. When she comes up to get a drink she smiles at him and for once the smile he gives back is genuine.

After the bar closes he finds her outside, leaning on the fence overlooking the gardens. "I just went through a bad break-up," she tells him. "Some friends persuaded me to come away with them, said it would be fun. But I don't ski, so I guess I'll be hanging around the hotel a lot."

He wouldn't call himself particularly good-looking but he seems to be a type, or at least a certain kind of woman seems to find him attractive enough. He's seen that look in a lot of pretty eyes - weighing him up, thinking _yes, this one, why not, I'm on holiday. _He's usually happy enough to oblige, although normally he'd wait until closer to the end of their trip, to avoid complications, recriminations. But in the moonlight her expression looks almost like Marte's and it's so easy to hold her, to kiss her, to go back to her room and do what's expected of him.

Now he's going to have to spend a fortnight avoiding her. Perfect.

* * *

><p>The next afternoon he's on the bar again when she comes downstairs to read and drink hot chocolate. He's expecting either the cold shoulder or clinginess, based on past experiences, but she's warm and friendly with just a hint of something more in her smile.<p>

When her friends finish their skiing she leaves with them but not before coming over and reminding him of her room number. He must look surprised because she hesitates, biting her lip, before saying "I just thought - never mind." She turns and goes and all he can think about all evening, as he serves drinks and collects glasses and smiles at guests, is how she bit her lip that same exact way when he first thrust into her the night before.

He goes to her room.

* * *

><p>He can't remember her name so he looks it up in the hotel register. The first time he uses it she laughs at his pronunciation - Ah-na - and he tries to say it the way she does but he forgets and after a couple of times she stops correcting him. She claims not to be able to hear the difference between the ways they pronounce his name and he doesn't really care, he just likes the sound of it from her lips.<p>

He doesn't know if this is how she was planning to spend her holiday but he doesn't mind, he doesn't mind at all; she's beautiful and enthusiastic and generous in bed, and in the afternoons she sits in the bar and talks to him when he isn't busy (he's fairly sure she sleeps all morning). She becomes a habit surprisingly quickly and when he starts his shift she's the first person he always looks for. And she's never far away.

* * *

><p>"Anna, I can't believe you came all the way to Lillehammer just to have a fling with the ski instructor."<p>

He's behind the bar, stacking clean glasses. Anna has her back to him but her friend doesn't; maybe she doesn't care or maybe she thinks his English isn't very good (his English is perfect).

"He's not a ski instructor."

"No, he's a _waiter_, that's even more of a ridiculous cliché."

"Whatever. I bet I'm having more fun on this holiday than you are."

* * *

><p>"Who's Marte?" she says, running her finger over the tattoo on his arm.<p>

"My fiancee," he says without thinking, and she starts back with a look of horror on her face.

"_Ex_-fiancee," he clarifies quickly. "She died last year. A car accident."

"Oh! Oh. God, I'm sorry. How awful."

Not the first woman he's told, of course, and most of them in situations like this one; post-coital and in the mood for confidences. He's not sure how many believed him. Not that it matters.

Anna believes him, though, and gives him a considering look that makes him blush and look away.

* * *

><p>It's his day off and he needs to go and see his mother and go to the bank and do some laundry but instead he spends all day with Anna, in her room, in her bed. In-between he listens to her talk but he can't stop touching her, her arm, her face, her waist; not even intending to start anything although often it does. He wants to learn every detail of her body, commit her to memory, and he refuses to think about why it matters so much.<p>

"A man could fall in love with you if he wasn't careful," he says as he pulls on his shirt, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"How careful do you plan on being?" she says, and he doesn't have an answer for her.

That night in his own bed he can't sleep, and he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. He isn't ready for this. It's been a year. But he isn't ready.

* * *

><p>"It's been a year since Marte died," Sven says as they set the tables for dinner. "I know what you're normally like but you could make an exception for this one. You like her."<p>

"I like fucking her," he says, "and that's all it is."

"Jesus, Kristoff, it doesn't have to be all or nothing."

"She's going back to England on Saturday so it doesn't matter, either way."

"The internet exists. Phones exist. Get her number, for god's sake. Her Facebook, her Skype, whatever."

* * *

><p>She talks in her sleep.<p>

He didn't intend to stay but here he is, listening to her mumbling to herself, and he finds himself smiling. He carefully strokes her hair back from her face and she sighs, mutters something, then buries her head in his chest. His arm goes round her automatically.

He needs to leave. But outside he can see the snow falling through the gap in the curtains, and Anna is warm and soft and sleeping in his arms, and before he knows it it's morning and they've been together all night.

* * *

><p>"I'd like to stay in touch," she says as he's leaving her room. "I know we live pretty far apart but - we have something here, don't you think?"<p>

He says nothing.

"Kristoff."

"I think we've had some fun," he says slowly, "but now you're going home."

"_Kristoff."_

Silence.

"We all have pasts, Kristoff, we've all been hurt, you can't just give up on love -"

The word hangs in the air between them.

"What would you know about love," he says, and then he's on the other side of the door and he wants to run. And he wants to go back in and tell her he's sorry. And he knows he has maybe a minute to decide which way he's going to go before it'll be too late anyway.

* * *

><p>She flies home.<p>

And he works and eats and sleeps and works, and waits for her to fade away.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why not London? Doesn't your friend live there?"

"Olaf?"

"That's right, Olaf. You speak English. It'll do you good."

She looks at her son and her heart breaks for him. She had thought he was doing better but it seems that she was wrong. The last few weeks he's drawn back into himself and it scares her.

"You know I worry about you, sweetheart."

"I know."

"You'll think about it."

"I will."

* * *

><p>London is wet and grey and dirty. Kristoff sleeps on Olaf's sofabed and finds a job in a club. He doesn't even know what he's doing here; he doesn't know her address, he's not even certain of her surname (though he could draw a detailed map of the freckles on her shoulders, the curve of her hips, the line of her jaw). Literally millions of people live in London. Not that he's looking for her; he's just trying to get his mother off his back, stop her looking at him with those anxious eyes. And this is as good a destination as any. He's not looking for her.<p>

* * *

><p>He sees her before she sees him. The club is busy but she's managed to get her elbows on the bar, and she's looking away, rummaging for her purse, when she first speaks. "Oh, hi, please could I have -" Then she looks up and straight at him. "-<em> you.<em>"

It's a long moment, and neither of them speak; all he can think is that he could reach out over the bar and touch her, her hand or her face. He could say anything, to her, right now.

As he opens his mouth a hand thumps down on her shoulder and spins her round. "Anna! Don't bother, we're going to the Crown, might be able to actually sit down, when did we become old people! Come on," and she's steered away. He loses sight of her in the crowd almost immediately.

* * *

><p>It's gone 2am and he's collecting abandoned glasses after closing. The place feels suddenly very quiet and he can hear the doorman talking to the manager.<p>

"...told her, there's no one by that name here."

"The new barman's called Chris. And he's from Sweden or somewhere, it could be."

"Ask him, then."

"Here, Chris!"

He walks over. "Yes?"

"Is Chris short for anything?"

"Kristoff. And I'm Norwegian."

"Whatever." He plucks the card from the doorman and hands it over. "Someone left this for you earlier. Ginger bird but what can you do."

"Thanks."

It's a business card. On the front in very serious letters it says 'ANNA RENDELL - MARKETING DIRECTOR - RENDELL INDUSTRIES' but on the back is scribbled in blotchy biro 'for KRISTOFF from ANNA' and a string of numbers.

"You must have made an impression, she wasn't in here five minutes," the doorman says.

"We've met before," Kristoff replies, tucking the card into his pocket.

* * *

><p>She doesn't come back and he understands that she's deliberately leaving the choice up to him (if he thought she didn't care, he just has to remember the look on her face when she saw him at the bar).<p>

But she's always known where to find him (although if she'd rung the hotel, he realises, they'd just have told her he didn't work there any more).

He keeps the card in his wallet (and tells himself that calling the number on it, starting something intentionally, would be disloyal when really it's just terrifying).

* * *

><p>A week passes. Two.<p>

He tells himself he can't let anyone have that kind of power over him again.

In his heart he knows it's already far too late.

* * *

><p>In the end, he looks up her workplace and finds out that it's only round the corner from the bar.<p>

In the end, he finds himself standing outside at five o'clock, as men and women stream past him in suits.

In the end, she sees him and nearly drops her bag, before running over to throw herself into his arms, whispering _oh thank god_ into his chest.

And he holds her, and it isn't the end. It's the beginning.


End file.
